Page 60 of Husband for the Holidays

“Because you’ll say we should get married.”

His breath choked out as though she’d kicked him in the stomach.

“Not because...” She lifted her head and stepped forward, holding out a hand in plea. “I was planning to tell you after I’ve had my twelve-week scan. It’s a lot less likely anything might go wrong after that so... I was trying to keep you from having to go through something painful if...” She trailed off and shrugged.

“So you would have gone through thatalone?” He swore and ran his hand down his face. “I told you to call me if you needed anything.”

“I didn’t. I’m fine.”

“Are you?” He raked his gaze over her again, then waved at the piano. “Because your song made me feel like my heart was being carved out with a rusty spoon.”

“It’s supposed to,” she mumbled, not entirely displeased to hear that.

Beyond the door, laughing voices walked by.

“Let’s go to my apartment so we can talk properly,” he said.

She pushed her folder into her shoulder bag, but when he reached to take it, he caught her wrist and stared at the ring.

“If you don’t want to marry me, why do you still wear it?”

“To keep men from hitting on me.” That was true, but the least of the reasons she kept wearing it. She liked feeling connected to him.

Yes, she was still harboring those old dreams, even though he had pushed her away. She handed him the bag and pushed her hand into her pocket.

His car was outside, but they didn’t talk on the short ride.

Walking into the penthouse was surreal. She’d been here for less than twenty-four hours two months ago, but it felt as though it had been years since she was here. At the same time, it was homey and familiar, as though she was returning to where she ought to be, maybe because it was stamped with his personality and everything about him felt like home.

Then she spotted the piano that hadn’t been there before.

Oh, Konstantin.

“Look.” She turned to face him. “I have no intention of keeping this baby from you—”

“Only yourself?” he bit out.

“That’s not fair. You didn’t want me,” she reminded him. “And now you do because I’m pregnant? Listen to how insulting that is. I have loved you my whole life, Konstantin. I deserve to be loved back.”

“You do,” he agreed. “I do love you, Eloise.”

“Oh,don’t!” she cried, hurt beyond measure that he would lie to her after everything else.

“I also deserve that skepticism,” he said gravely. “Refusing to say it and walking away when we could have been together all this time wasn’t fair to you. It wasn’t fair to us.” He ran his hand over his face and took a few restless steps across the room. “It felt too good, Eloise. Hope is not something that ever worked out for me. Things would get better with my father and I would hope. He’d get a job and I’d get a gift and I would hope. My mother would pack our things and we would try to leave and Ihoped.”

She bit her lip, wanting to rush toward him, but his tension held her off. She stayed still and quiet and let him spill out what he needed to say.

“I went to live with my grandfather and there was food and peace and I thought that would be my life, but I was sent to a bloody boarding school where it was a different kind of chaos. I mastered my schoolwork and thought I’d be an architect like my friend, but my grandfather had a stroke and...” His shaken sigh spoke of untold pain. “I honestly thought I was headed back to square one at that point. That all was lost. Again. But Ilias stepped in. He made me believe there were people in this life who cared about me. ThatIcould have good things. Then hedied.”

Oh, Konstantin. She swallowed his name and hurried to brush away her tears, stifling her sobs, not wanting to distress him, but he was ripping out her heart.

“And you. All you did was look at me with hope. As though I could make you happy. I don’t know what happinessis. I’ve had a fleeting glimpse of it here and there, but it was always gone as quickly as it arrived. I don’t knowhowto be happy. I don’t trust it. I didn’t trust us.” He turned to face her, expression creased with remorse. “So I threw us away.”

“I never meant for you to think I expect to be happy all the time. I know life is messy and painful. Look at this baby.” She waved at her middle. “I’m ecstatic about it, but the best-case scenario is that it’s going to hurt like hell when it arrives. I don’t expect you to make me happy, Konstantin. I just want you to be with me when I am. To share it with me.”

He closed his eyes, seeming to take a minute to absorb that.

“Do you really want that?” he asked solemnly. “Because I want that, too. I want to be with you even when you’re not happy. I can’t stand to think of you hurting and alone. I want to be there to hold you and help you and somehow find our way back to the good times because I’ve realized that even if those happy times only last a minute, it’s a minute worth fighting for. I want those minutes, Eloise. If I miss another one, I think it might actually kill me.”

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